She wants to have a little chat with you.

Gretchen immediately zoomed in on me. I tried to hide behind my screen, but it was too late.

We made eye contact. And boy, were her eyes angry.

"Jack. Come to my office. Now."

And with that, she stormed out. I shared a glance with Lana, and she made en exaggerated face of worry.

"Ah, it's probably nothing," I lied.

"Don't worry. Just take it like a... man?" she said with that annoying know-it-all voice of hers, and grinned at me.

Well, I guess it was time for my execution.

I stepped into Gretchen's office. I know she fought like hell to get this particular room. It was big with a beautiful scenery of the city skyline right out of her window. She was currently staring at it, not even looking at my direction when I entered. That's alright, I didn't mind staring at her heavenly arse also. She was wearing very skin-tight professional white pants. It worked very well with her body. It took until I sat down for her to turn around, and sigh.

"Jack. We've both worked here for the last three years. I would assume we know each other well by now?"

"Yeah, well, I guess..."

"Seriously. What the fuck did you think I was going to think about your piece-of-shit-article?"

She could be very foul-mouthed when she wanted to. I guess it was one of her leadership "qualities".

"Um... I thought it had some good parts in it..." I lied.

"No it didn't. It definitely didn't. It was like it was written by somebody who hasn't kept up with fashion for the last decade. It was just pathethic."

"Well, to be completely honest with you, I don't think that jacket belonged to this decade either..."

"Fashion is cyclical you moron. You seriously haven't even noticed that it's making a comeback? What the fuck do you with your working hours? Play games?"

Actually, I spent way too many hours fantasizing about you...

"Okay. Criticism received. I'll do better."

"No no no! That's just the tip of the iceberg! All your articles are sliding more and more towards absolute garbage. And not only that, I had to wait three days for this stinker! Do you have any idea how many aspiring young female writers want to work here? And you're just pissing all your time away on this shit?"

I'm sure that the phrase "female writers" wasn't even a slip-up. They really wanted my male ass gone already, but couldn't say it out loud.

"Well... I..." I think the stress was enough, I had to burst just a little. "I think you have been giving me exessive amounts of workload lately. I can't keep up, or hardly keep the quality. Also, with the recent paycuts, I struggle with rent and just basic food these days, and all that just loads more and more stress on me and..." okay perhaps this was a good space to stop before I said something about her attitude also.

She looked at me quietly for a few seconds.

"It's good that you told me this, Jack". She smiled. She actually smiled!

"I'll let Maria know that you have trouble keeping up. We've been suspecting that for a while now anyways. She'll probably call you to her office later today." No. No. No! I fucked up!

"No, wait, I..."

"Thanks Jack. If you could please leave my office now, I have work to do. As do you." and she immediately started typing on her computer.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.